It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work.
Interpretation
Dependence on others' validation can jeopardize your creative freedom and integrity.
Spike Lee's quote warns against the perils of seeking external approval for one's work. When individuals begin to prioritize the opinions of others over their own creative instincts, they risk losing their unique voice and authenticity. This dependence can lead to compromise in their work, resulting in a loss of passion and innovation, as well as potential criticism that could deter them from pursuing their artistic vision.
In practice
During a speech at a creative arts conference, a speaker might use this quote to encourage artists to trust their instincts.
I think that anyone who lives in New York, who's lived here, who's spent any time here, knows that it's basically a love-hate relationship, you might say. Even though I still think it's the greatest city in the world and I wouldn't live anywhere else, there're still things about it one doesn't like. The love far outweighs the negative.
There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic.
The truth is I've been doing Kickstarter before there was Kickstarter; there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes.
All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.
Because many advances have happened, we've lost the urgency (and that's just human nature) that we had before, when we couldn't vote, couldn't use mass transportation, or drink from the fountains.
It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.
I would never allow anyone to give me money, no difference how badly I needed it. I wanted literally to earn my living.
Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.
Perez Hilton is brilliant to me. Because he’s taken something that people don’t think is valid, don’t think is important, and he’s made them obsessed with it. People are obsessed with him. They’re obsessed with his site, they’re obsessed with what he does. They love him. They all love him. They love you, they hate you, what you don’t want is indifference. The day that I put a record out that nobody says a damn thing about, that’s bad.
You know, you want to win and you want a ring. But when you win and you get the ring, you never really wear it.
Failure, failure is so important, it doesn’t get spoken about enough, we speak about success all the time.
It is only after an unknown number of unrecorded labors, after a host of noble hearts have succumbed in discouragement, convinced that their cause is lost; it is only then that cause triumphs.
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